


Aesthetic

by chantefable



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 1960s, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Ambiguous Relationships, Art History, Attraction, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Partnership, Post-Canon, Seduction, Spies & Secret Agents, THRUSH, Undercover, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 16:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11832255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: They need access to the mark who is going to grant them access to a place, and charm is the preferred offensive this time. llya Kuryakin is, objectively, an arresting sight, and the mark's keen interest is palpable.(In which an argument is made that Napoleon Solo's aesthetic sensibilities are severely affected by his profession and temperament.)





	Aesthetic

**Author's Note:**

> Marvelous is the power which can be exercised, almost unconsciously, over a company, or an individual, or even upon a crowd by one person gifted with good temper, good digestion, good intellects, and good looks. (Anthony Trollope)

The party is lavish without being gaudy, or rather, it _is_ a bit gaudy, but Napoleon is not that sophisticated to mind. Waverly would have probably thought it unnecessarily tawdry, all the paillettes and champagne, clouds of heavy synthetic perfume and slightly acrid sweat, diluted pupils and plastic smiles – the chemically enhanced relaxation of the idle rich. Waverly would have thought it crass and mingled without batting an eyelash, aristocracy and all that; Gaby is just a chop shop girl from East Berlin, and she cannot hide her delight at the sight just yet, even though she has obviously been attempting to mimic Waverly's attitude to life.

They need access to the mark who is going to grant them access to a place, and charm is the preferred offensive this time – just a little friendly overture, a little flirtation, maybe more. The man is a well-known antiques dealer with an eye for fine things, and he quickly passes over Napoleon. His gaze doesn't linger on Gaby's thighs, either, bared as they are by a fashionably short gold-lamé skirt. 

It is an unprecedented hitch in the plan. Napoleon may have been ready to beat a hasty retreat if someone were to recognize him from his earlier days as an art thief. (Occasionally museum robber, occasionally burglar, swindler, once, memorably, a grave-robber. The price was good and Napoleon isn't squeamish.) But this is a new development; he tries a different approach, attracts attention to himself, laughs. Mirrors the pose, the gestures, circles around the hall, loitering with the guests, and circles the mark. 

The perfumes and alcohol vapors are smothering. The mark is clearly uninterested, and Napoleon's attempts at conversation fall flat. He reads the man well enough to understand that he finds Napoleon vapid (and perhaps too robust, and probably well past his prime). Because Napoleon is, indeed, very experienced (one of the few fortunate side-effects of being past your prime and no longer a nubile young thing), he can tell that he is out of luck tonight, and that Gaby has even fewer chances than he. Because he is rougher than his mannerisms suggest, Napoleon's ego is unaffected, but his mind is agitated. 

They _need_ access. 

He looks over the mark's shoulder and meets Kuryakin's eyes across the hall. Mere seconds later, Gaby glides past him without a word.

They are strangers tonight, and to anyone else, nothing has happened but a man and a woman accidentally brushing against each other, but Napoleon spots the sleight of hand and knows that Gaby is not retreating to the ladies' room to powder her nose – she is taking point from Kuryakin, the broadcast device somewhere on her body now. Napoleon doesn't turn to see where she's going; she'll be at the command console somewhere and he will make sure he hears her in his ear if need be. He steps away with a fake smile and blends with the crowd.

The important thing here is that Kuryakin has the advantage of intuition, training and awareness that allow him to read the situation; he steps in and takes over from Napoleon just as smoothly as Gaby has taken over from him. He knows how to stand with a flute of champagne, the candelabra bathing him in light just so, and not a moment passes before something shifts in the air around him. The mark turns and gives an appraising look to the one who is already commanding an audience of inebriated ingénues and slick young men. Illya Kuryakin is, objectively, an arresting sight just then, and the mark's keen interest is palpable.

The mark approaches him first, and the dancing guests in brightly-colored outfits part like a psychedelic Red Sea. Thank god, it's an opening, and the mark's face lights up when Kuryakin measures a small smile in response to his overture. The mark works for his attention, engages him. 

Napoleon hides his own grin with a mouthful of now-flat champagne. It tastes heavenly.

//

The party continues, strange music that jars with perception of reality sloshing at the edges of Napoleon's consciousness and champagne glasses shimmering with reflected electric lights. He keeps a narrow focus: the mission, the cover, the exits, a line of sight on Kuryakin – and lets his body move. He's inconspicuous tonight, which means that he is lewd and idle. He engages in three disjointed conversations about the Tokyo Olympiad, a small part of his brain straining to keep up with Kuryakin's progress.

It turns out that the mark has a fondness for Constantin Meunier. Kuryakin proves surprisingly knowledgeable about the artist. (When has he had the time to prepare? Has he extrapolated from the mark's interest in sculpture, noted in the dossier they got from Waverly?)

Then again, perhaps Napoleon ought to have been less surprised, given Meunier's reverent depiction of dock workers and miners. If Kuryakin were to like a modern European painter, surely it would be Meunier, elevating industrial workers, his compassion an anti-thesis to bourgeois complacency and imperialist rot.

It's just that Napoleon sometimes finds it hard to believe that someone truly likes art. Kuryakin appears so genuine, his interest for Meunier's artistic commitment so sincere. He knows the painter was born in a working-class area of Etterbeek, and speaks about social and political developments of 19th century Belgium with ease. Napoleon could never talk like that, could never muster more than superficial, paternalistic commentary that luckily fits his usual mask of idle entitlement well enough. He has no love for the art.

Marauders are not art lovers. They are thieves. 

Napoleon had taken things he had no right to take, stole and pilfered, lied without the slightest twinge of conscience and pocketed money after fencing priceless family heirlooms and museum artifacts. He had seen the maps of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli and the paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and he was never moved. He has no respect for historical value or ingenuous artistic method. He had helped flood the market with so many crass forgeries of Russian avant-garde that he suspects Kuryakin would have strangled him in his sleep on principle if he only knew.

Marauders have no need for true appreciation of the art. They are connoisseurs, in the same way as pimps are connoisseurs of human flesh. 

Napoleon smiles at a woman in a skin-tight Lycra mini dress, her long limbs bared to the eye and so heavily adorned with polymer bijouterie she jingles with every step. Her nails are a bright yellow and they smell faintly of formaldehyde resin as he bends to kiss her hand. She looks more plastic than person. (He is not repulsed. Few things repulse him.) He compliments her effortlessly, false admiration that she recognizes as false and does not mind as long as it is abundant. 

(Napoleon's reserves of admiration are as scarce as his dignity. And since he would never give it to people in his bed, he sees no reason why, say, Rodin's sculptures should have it instead.)

Kuryakin, on the other hand, shows hidden depths as the night continues, talking about _The Broken Crucible_ in a way that obviously leaves the mark transfixed. Following his intense monologue, Napoleon, too, finds himself vicariously pained by the plight of the factory workers, metaphor and metallurgy forming something alien in his mind, a poignant appreciation. It is strange; he has a vague memory of having seen the painting once, in the atelier-turned-museum in Ixelles. Nothing but a mess of browns and a light that reminded Napoleon of hell, and of a bad two-week fever he had suffered a couple years ago in Singapore. Inexecrable heat. 

In spite of his own unflattering memories, he believes Kuryakin's words and trusts the painting to be beautiful, powerful. Van Dyke brown, umber, sepia, sanguine, ochre: the words are meaningless to him but they clearly work like a charm on the mark, locks opening and tumblers turning, trust and quick affection for Kuryakin, this fine young man with a true understanding of real art, blooming in the mark's face before Napoleon's eyes. This passion for the art, unfeigned, intellectual, soulful – it is like a cipher of sorts, and Napoleon finds himself momentarily lacking, unprofessional: he knows _he_ wouldn't have been capable of this kind of authentic emotional engagement for the sake of the job. But it obviously _works_ , the mark predisposed to like Kuryakin, already conveniently inviting him over for further conversation. Whether it is all real or Kuryakin is faking a little, somehow exaggerating, matters not: Napoleon wouldn't have been able to do the same. Wouldn't have found the words; wouldn't have felt a thing, and it is _feeling_ that elicits response in the mark.

He continues discreet surveillance even as Kuryakin and the mark are moving to leave the hall, deep in conversation about _Monument au Travail_ in Laeken quarter, discussing their impressions of the sculptures and hauts-reliefs. Kuryakin says something about _The Mine_ that is perfectly casual and yet tinged with such darkness that Napoleon is momentarily reminded of his own anguish and hopelessness during the brief (eternal) period when he was in the CIA's pocket but still on their bad side, a trial program with hallucinogenic drugs and electroshock therapy, 'for science'. He shakes himself and focuses on the martini glass in his hand, on the mark's response about _The Industry_ , the complementing nature of the figures, earth and fire. 

Indeed, for as long as Napoleon has a clear visual of them both, the two men, Kuryakin and the mark, appear just like that: earth and fire. One large and strong, hidden riches buried deep, with an open face of a field worker (field operative, so many obscured talents), the other a lithe redhead with a fiery gleam in his eye, constant fluid movement and dangerous grace (antiques dealer, informant, saboteur). 

There is beauty in that, too; Napoleon is no art lover but he is able to tell as much.

//

Overall, the night is a success; the mark is charmed, the objective secured, the access granted. 

There is no rest for the wicked, and they are on a tight schedule.

Thwarting assassination plots is complicated in unlikely ways, all scurrying and waiting with bated breath while seemingly unrelated, mundane things fall in place and the disastrous sequence of events is averted. (Napoleon sees a certain irony that after being one of the agents dispatched to carry out such assassinations, he is now preventing them as part of UNCLE. Is this a kind of intelligence inosculation, introducing a small amount of decease for eventual prophylaxis? He supposes Waverly's creative reversal of their skills is something Napoleon and Kuryakin could bond over, but instead, it's just one of those things they never talk about.)

But it's the morning after that brings trouble, when they are far away from the party's glitter and gold, away from the coveted office's steel and chrome, where the vault has already been unlocked, the necessary documents identified and replaced. Without the evidence, the dreaded buzz is just rumor-mongering, a provocation, and so thanks to their mark ensuring that Kuryakin could get inside, they have been able to retrieve the real papers and replace them with Waverly's decoys, concerned parties none the wiser for the time being. A small step to hold off a scandal, to render further escalation unnecessary. (Ultimately, to perhaps save someone's life, but isn't that just a footnote in a file these days? It's a graceless job.) They have done everything smoothly, but – 

But right now, it's the docks, all grime and gore, a stop on their way out turned ugly once they crossed paths with THRUSH mercenaries. The air is cool, smelling of salt and motor oil. Napoleon finds the fight satisfying. If he is a little slower than usual because of the very long day, the champagne, and the adrenaline rush during the safe-cracking, he doesn't admit it to himself. (Getting a little past his prime, just as the mark's lack of even cursory interest suggested earlier tonight. Napoleon is not thinking about it.)

There is no time for idle thoughts because the fight is picking up and Napoleon loses himself in the energy of hand-to-hand combat, hears Kuryakin do the same a few paces away. A deafening screech of motorcycle tires announces Gaby's arrival; she's all about efficiency so she throws them a pair of firearms. Their adversaries scatter, change position, flee. 

And yet, there is something to be said about bringing a knife to a gunfight because, Gaby's Berettas or no, they are noticeably outnumbered and cannot incapacitate everyone at once. A man whose arm Napoleon is sure to have fractured minutes before slips way too close to Kuryakin while he is gunning down the THRUSH men about to escape the warehouse. Way too close, danger close; a knife slices across the back of Kuryakin's thigh. 

Napoleon shoots him in the head. Luckily, the trajectory is good, no blood or brain matter making contact with Kuryakin's wound. Still, Napoleon braces himself for an inevitable lecture on hygiene and prevention from Gaby.

They have to clean up after themselves. Leaving Gaby to check Kuryakin's wound, Napoleon strategically dumps fuel and sets fire to the bodies, the motorcycle, and the surrounding small area: a nearly mindless if gruesome task. If only everything about resisting THRUSH's economic warfare against the world was so easy. 

Napoleon is high-strung when he gets in the car, fingers tapping an odd rhythm on the dash as Gaby drives off. Kuryakin's hamstring wound is just a graze. Messy but superficial. The car still smells like blood, coppery but strangely pleasant. An earthy smell of iron.

At the safe-house, Gaby and Napoleon stitch Kuryakin up. The bleeding is copious but the slice is nothing, most of it just a lot displaced skin. Halfway through they wonder if it would have been a better idea to just leave it be. It's uneven, and the bleeding barely stops. The champagne from earlier could have been out of Kuryakin's system by now, what with all the stressful running and sweating, but he keeps sipping from the small bottle of vodka Gaby carries in the medical kit, and it's not like Napoleon is going to tell him no. This thing is probably going to scar, but it's hardly the worst thing on Kuryakin's body. Hell, it's hardly the worst thing on this leg.

There's even something interesting about it, he thinks, admiring their handiwork: a jagged, asymmetrical line, now raised and held together with white thread. The blood streaks slowly disappear as Napoleon dabs them with cotton while Gaby puts away the disinfectant and tools. Right now, it rises like a mountain range and is hot like a furnace. Very real, and current, and alive. It carries _some_ sort of aesthetic appeal, not that Napoleon is about to voice it.

They help Kuryakin settle on the couch on his belly: they still have ninety minutes before they need to leave and he can use the rest while Napoleon and Gaby wrap up. On the tenth minute, Kuryakin falls asleep, and Napoleon watches him for a bit while Gaby goes to arrange the curtains just so, a signal that they will be making the live drop in two hours.

On the thirtieth minute, packing up the microfilm in the hidden compartments in his toiletries, Napoleon sluggishly thinks about Constantin Meunier again. His son died of pulmonary tuberculosis, which he got because he had jumped into the water to save his father's drawings during a flood. Stupid. Say what you want about art, it is not worth the rash, foolish things people do for it, whatever value or emotion there is. Napoleon is glad that he converted all art that passed through his hands into the hardest currency, De Beers diamonds, and the blood besmirching the entire industry doesn't bother him one whit.

On the sixtieth minute, Napoleon is sitting in the cramped kitchen with a cigarette in his mouth and staring at Gaby, similarly exhausted and slumped against the Formica kitchen table across from him. And on that sixtieth minute, Napoleon abruptly recalls that he had jumped into the water to save Kuryakin at the Vinciguerra facility. 

He feels very old, and very stupid, and their ride cannot come fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Constantin Meunier: Belgian realist painter and sculptor, celebrated for his depiction of the workers' world.
> 
> Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli: Italian astronomer, cosmographer and mathematician; notably met with delegates and tradesmen from China to the court of Pope Eugenius IV, discussing Chinese geography, economy, inventions and knowledge, spoke of the great advantages of further contacts between Latin world and China, and corresponded with Christopher Columbus about the possibility and profitability of voyages to China.
> 
> William-Adolphe Bouguereau: French traditionalist, quintessential salon painter, epitomizing taste and refinement and commanding top prices during his lifetime.
> 
> Tokyo Olympiad: 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
> 
> De Beers: private diamond mining and trading company founded in 1888; throughout the 20th century, carried out global monopoloid practices, using its dominant position to manipulate the international diamond market through price fixing, antitrust behavior, etc.
> 
> Live drop: in espionage tradecraft, individuals meeting in person to exchange information or items.


End file.
